The Rough Edge guide to London

Wednesday 2 May 2001 23:00 BST

Notting Hill, according to writers Miranda Davies and Sarah Anderson, is "a special place, both to those lucky enough to live here and to the thousands of visitors who flock to the market or Carnival".

They make this claim in Inside Notting Hill (published by Portobello Publishing on 17 May at £9.99), a 247-page guide to the area's geography, its shops, its history, its restaurants, its cinemas and even its appearances in literature from 1767 to the present day.

Some people might think this was a rather precious enterprise by these two women, who proudly declare their length of residence in this "special place" in their thumbnail biographies. Those people would be wrong. Far from further exacerbating the smugness of an area already far too pleased with itself, Davies and Anderson have made a breakthrough in tourist marketing.

For we all know that London is far too large and diverse to be considered a homogeneous entity. Tourists no longer want to slog from the London Eye to Buckingham Palace, or from the Tower of London to Portobello Road. Far better, surely, to treat the capital as a series of linked villages, each with their own charm and character - a bag of mixed sweets from which visitors can choose.

True, Wood Green does not have its own carnival; Streatham High Street has fewer nice restaurants and antique shops than Portobello Road; Poplar has not been eulogised by GK Chesterton, Michael Horowitz and Mustapha Matura, whose paeans to Notting Hill are among the many anthologised by Davies and Anderson. But each borough of London is in its own way a "special place", as we will see when the other guidebooks in the "Inside ..." series are published.

Admittedly, there are no official plans for such a series, but Davies and Anderson are undoubtedly planning one. There is no way they would just plug and puff their own "special" corner of town. Perish the thought! Still, just in case the Portobello Sisters can't decide which "village" to profile next, This Is London/Evening Standard is happy to make a few suggestions.